Hello Sir, I'm from Chile, a country in south-america. The Dulce de Leche comes from us. Here is a tip. Just trow the sweetened condensed milk can into a pot full of warm water and boil it for 2hours with low-fire. Then open the can and et voilą. Dulce de leche!

Hi, im colombian, we have a traditional recipe of dulce de leche called "Arequipe" that has a different (delicious) taste.
Its basically the same thing, with a different kind of sugar, called "panela"
it is basically "raw" sugar but you need to use the traditional recipe (unless you find condensed milk made with panela) which is boiling 2 lt milk and then adding 2 lb panela, mixing it until it acquires the desired consistency. (takes 2-3 hours of mixing)
also
adding corn starch to the mix makes it a delicious dessert
add it just when milk boils (traditional recipe)
for the "easy" (cheap ) recipe add it when the condensed milk starts to boil and mix for 20 minutes (or less)

This didn't work for me. My condensed milk never browned. No Maillard reaction I just got a block of solid condensed milk... which still tasted like condensed milk, not like dulce de leche at all. I also had a very hard time prying it out of the plastic container I poured it into while it was still hot.

I did this a second time, and tried microwaving it for less time so it wouldn't be as solid. I got a better consistency, although it was still quite solid. And not brown at ALL. A very yellowish-white, still. Still tasted like condensed milk, too.

Fortunately, I was able to salvage both messes by making dulce de leche the old fashioned way. I put the hardened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and water in a pot on the stove, and mixed on medium low heat until the whole thing thickened. My solid blocks of condensed milk eventually dissolved into the mixture and I got beautiful brown dulce de leche.

I was so disappointed with the results of these. Must be my microwave oven.

I was so disappointed with the results of these. Must be my microwave oven.

What were the ingredients of your sweetened condensed milk? It should just be milk and sugar. I've seen some sweetened condensed milk with strange additives - if you've got one of those it might affect the microwaving.

Hi, I am from Brazil and we also eat a lot of dulce de leche there, called "doce de leite" in Portuguese.

I just tried this method, the method worked perfectly, but at the end, it doesn't taste like dulce de leche. It tastes more like caramel, or some milk candie, but not dulce de leche. Sorry, but the taste from dulce de leche is different. And I am not talking about Brazilian dulce de leche, because I have also tried the Argentinian one which is the best.

For a dulce de leche you have to cook the condensed milk can in a pressure cooker for 50 minutes as mentioned before, or for some hours if not using a pressure cooker. Or, there is a method I've seen and tried from David Lebovitz's blog, that is made in the oven that also works great, and it takes about 1 hour: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2005/11/dulce-de-lechec/

I love dulce de leche. One of my favorite ingredients and so easy to make. I never tried it in the microwave, but it look like it came out GREAT! I just had the best cupcakes ever and they had dulce de leche filling. I think I need to make them with your recipe. thanks!

[Edited to remove a cupcake link that did not appear to leave to a cupcake recipe with dulce de leche or anything else related to this article.]

My mom was born in Argentina. She has always made dulce de leche by just throwing the can of sweetened condensed milk into a pot and just letting the water boil for a few hours. Never have i ever heard of the can exploding. She's done this my whole life and i'm 37.

I made this and wrote about it here. It was really tasty but for some reason it got hard as a brick when I put the leftovers in the fridge, something that doesn't happen when I make it the old fashioned way. Any ideas on why this happened?

I am wondering if the sweetened consensed milk tin has a pull-off top on it, would that be safe to put in a pot of water and boil for several hours, or is the top likely to blow off?

I tried the microwave method and did not have luck with it - it came out hard, still yellow and definitely not dulce de leche, although I have never actually had the real thing! I want to put this on a cake, so I want a sauce consistency. Thanks!!

I tried this yesterday and it came out perfect. I prefer my Dulce de Leche in the solid candy form like the ones you can buy in the mercados throughout Mexico and most recipes seem to be for what my family has always called cajeta (which I now believe is slightly different from dulce de leche but we still call it that nonetheless).

I used to do the stove top method but it took forever. And we used evaporated milk with a ton of sugar and a little vanilla. I think I prefer that way over using condensed milk but that's probably because that's the way/taste I'm used to.

So I cooked this until it I could tell it would solidify but I could have easily stopped before that if I wanted it to be spreadable.

Next time, I'm going to try this with the evaporated milk/sugar/vanilla mix and see how that works. Never thought to nuke it, thanks for the idea!!